Crusade for the Blade
Crusade for the Blade is the 60th episode of Kirby: Right Back at Ya!. It is notable for the first appearance of Sirica and revealing more of Meta Knight's past. Synopsis A mysterious ship crashed into the woods. A girl named Sirica came from the ship and sought the Star Warrior who had supposedly stole the sacred sword, Galaxia. The Star Warrior turned out to be Meta Knight. Episode Summary Kirby and Tiff's family have just finished their dinner and Tiff gladly asks Kirby if he would like to stay overnight with them since it's already late. Kirby happily agrees. Suddenly, to their surprise, some kind of shooting star begins streaking through the skies over Castle Dedede and they watch in awe from the family's living room window as the shooting star crashes in a nearby forest and scares away a group of crows. It turns out that it's not really a shooting star, but a spaceship. Inside, it shows some containment that opens up, filling the inside with smoke and revealing a girl that looks strikingly like Tiff (save for the white skin and hair and different clothing) Afterwards, King Dedede and Escargoon are driving through the forest in their limo to investigate the crash-landing. As they do so, Dedede questions Escargoon on why he woke him up (after all, Dedede's such a sleepyhead that he just wants to go back to bed). Eventually, the two stumble upon the crash site of the spaceship. Dedede orders Escargoon to investigate, but Escargoon simply just refuses. Just then, the two are interrupted by the same girl who was sleeping in her own spaceship earlier, who questions them on who they are and what they want. Escargoon introduces Dedede to the girl, who knows right away that she has finally arrived in Dream Land. Dedede becomes angry at her for ignoring him, but she responds by burning Escargoon with her weapon, which is able to change into different weapons. As Dedede and Escargoon escape, the girl blasts them with her flamethrower again, eventually causing an explosion, and they drive back to the castle to recover as the girl walks on to see Castle Dedede from a distance. There, Meta Knight, Sword, and Blade are watching from one balcony wondering if it really was an alien that crashed into the forest. Dedede orders for the Waddle Dees to watch out and defend the castle from the strange girl, for the whole castle to be locked up, and yells at Meta Knight, Sword, and Blade to help out. As he and Escargoon go inside the castle, Escargoon wonders if the girl may be another debt-collecting monster from Nightmare Enterprises, and suggests that Dedede pay his debt, which, naturally of course, his majesty refuses to do. Back at the entrance to the castle, the girl from earlier arrives at the castle; the drawbridge is closed, so she gets in by using her weapon's grappling hook. Immediately after landing in the castle walls, she is attacked by some Waddle Dees, and all of them get blasted. Watching from their balcony, Kirby and Tiff's family are frightened and retreat inside to the safety of the living room. As the Waddle Dees run around the castle halls frantically looking for the girl or freaking out, Meta Knight and his followers are looking for the girl. They see the girl, standing on a higher level than the three of them. The girl tells Meta Knight that it's been a long time, and Meta Knight asks if they have met before. The girl becomes even angrier and yells that her mother was the Star Warrior Garlude, and then blasts at him with her weapon. As she chases him through the halls with her weapon, Sword and Blade jump down to fight against her, allowing Meta Knight to get away. She tells them to move, but they refuse to do so without a fight. She blasts at them, but they dodge her shots. They hide behind two pillars, and work out a plan. Sword runs around the room to get the girl to blast at him, while Blade is sneaks up on her. She sees him at the last second, and then changes her weapon into a sword and blocks Blade's attack. Sword cuts the chains connecting one of the chandeliers to the ceiling of the main hall, and the girl barely avoids it. The girl lands hard, and gets back up to continue searching for Meta Knight. Back at Tiff's family's living room, Sir Ebrum and Lady Like are hoping that the worst is over, while Tiff, Tuff, and Kirby sneak away from the room to get to the bottom of the attack. Meanwhile, in one of the castle halls, the strange girl blasts through a wall with her weapon, and shouts at Meta Knight that its no use hiding from her, and she is suddenly attacked from both sides by Sword and Blade. She dodges their attack and uses her grappling hook to swing over to Dedede's room, kicking right through the window and taking Dedede and Escargoon by surprise. She blasts at them with her flamethrower again to chase them out of the room before continuing her search for Meta Knight. In another part of the castle, Tiff, Tuff, and Kirby see a lot of Waddle Dees stampeding wildly through the halls, and wonder what's making them freak out when they see the girl blast again with her rocket launcher and once again yells for Meta Knight to come and fight her. She spots the three, who are surprised to see that the invader is a girl. As the girl confronts the three, Tiff questions her about who she is and why she's after Meta Knight. The girl introduces herself as Sirica and says that he has something that very precious to her: his sword, Galaxia. Sirica explains, and a flashback to the time when Meta Knight and Garlude were adventuring together starts. They were trying to reclaim a special sword, Galaxia, which had apparently been stolen by the monster Kirisakin. The two heroes fought against it, and Garlude eventually grabbed Galaxia from the ground. As that happened, the story as Sirica remembers goes on that Meta Knight had just waited and watched without any care as Garlude was overpowered by the beast, who eventually claimed her life. As that happened, says Sirica, Meta Knight stole Galaxia and left the cave, leaving Garlude to perish. After the flashback ends, Tiff disagrees with her story. Meta Knight and his allies appear and Sword and Blade are just getting the kids away as Sirica blasts Meta Knight with her rocket launcher, badly injuring him. She then proceeds to blast at everyone else, who manage to get the injured veteran soldier to safety as a hole in the top of the castle is made from all those explosions. Seeing that Meta Knight is badly injured, Kirby and co. decide to help him recover, so they get him to the safety of Kabu Canyon. Afterwards, Tuff and Kirby later receive some medicine from Sir Ebrum and Lady Like and proceed to carry it to the canyon, while Lady Like tells them to be careful as they do so. Of course, however, Sirica sees this and smiles maliciously, knowing that she can find Meta Knight if she follows them both, and she does so. Along the way to the canyon, Kirby gets a strange feeling and turns around just to see nothing behind him, and Tuff tells him to hurry up, and Kirby does so. Unknown to them both, however, the two are leading Sirica to Kabu Canyon. Back at the castle, Dedede and Escargoon consult with the N.M.E. Sales Guy about Sirica, telling him about the description of her physical appearance as well as her attitude, and he suggests that they send over the "big guy," and therefore downloads yet another monster to the castle, this time being a huge purple ape-like monster with pink stripes on his back and a horn on his forehead as well as scythes for hands. The monster is Kirisakin, who roars in might as he does a battle pose, clashing his scythes above his head. Dedede is amazed and proceeds to say, "Now that's a monster!" while Escargoon says he thinks he's going to faint. Meanwhile, at Kabu Canyon, Sword and Blade are on watch duty as Tiff tends to Meta Knight's wounds. She asks him if he really did steal Galaxia just for himself and leave Garlude to die at Kirisakin's hands, and Meta Knight says that, indeed, he did not do any of that as well. Unfortunately, Meta Knight feels that he himself cannot successfully convince Sirica of such a notion, so he suggests that Galaxia should do the convincing for him. Tiff wonders how, since she says that it's not like his sword can speak. Meta Knight then suggests that they let Kabu talk about Galaxia for them. Kabu does a flashback to the years while the universe itself was young, taking the two on a trip to that same past. Kabu explains that Galaxia was forged by Photron those same years, and took them many years to make. According to Kabu, Galaxia is no ordinary sword, but it emits incredible power as well as consciousness. After its completion, eNeMeE sent Kirisakin to steal and guard the sword within a certain dark cave. Meta Knight and Garlude traveled together to search for the heavenly blade of Galaxia, and eventually stumbled upon the cave of Kirisakin, where they finally found the sword. Meta Knight was able to claim Galaxia as his own, and thus, eNeMeE no longer had the power to control the universe. As the flashback ends, Tiff begins to wonder what truly happened to Garlude, when Sword and Blade alert them that Tuff and Kirby have returned with the medicine. Tiff is happy to know that, and now they can make Meta Knight better again. Just then, however, Sirica appears to intervene and tells everyone to fork over Galaxia before blasting at them with her machine gun. Blade and Sword attack her again, but she manages to escape from them, and blasts at them again, this time with her rocket launcher, until Meta Knight interrupts them, finally having had enough of running away from Sirica and deciding to take her head-on. His friends try to get him not to fight her, as he is injured, but the he refuses to listen to them and unsheathes Galaxia. Sirica is happy to know that Meta Knight finally feels like meeting her in combat, and the two do battle, where she manages to get the upper hand and eventually knock the sword out of Meta Knight's hands and then dash for it. Meta Knight tells her to wait, but she just doesn't want to listen, saying that she is Galaxia's rightful owner. She then attempts to pry Galaxia from the ground, only to be repelled by its overwhelming electrical energy. It is here that Meta Knight then explains that only those who have the power may claim Galaxia as their own, and that those who are not worthy may end up infusing evil upon themselves. Suddenly, a familiar roar is heard by everyone, and they see that Kirisakin has come to reclaim Galaxia for his superiors, much to Sirica's and Meta Knight's horror. Meta Knight decides that everyone must stop him, so Sirica goes first in trying to fend off the great beast. Unfortunately, she is unable to do so, even when she stabs him in his shoulder with her weapon, which he knocks away with his scythes after knocking her away and unconscious. Sword and Blade attack him next, but they get quickly bested by him as well. Tiff then tells Kirby to "Suck it up" and he proceeds to inhale Sword Knight's sword and become Sword Kirby. Meta Knight knows that Kirby must defeat Kirisakin, and watches as Kirby clashes blades with the behemoth, and then uses his Drill Rush attack, which breaks one of the ape's scythes. Then, he watches to his surprise as Kirisakin's scythe regenerates. The beast then proceeds to begin slashing wildly at a shocked Kirby, who dodges and attempts to block his slashes. Sirica watches as she regains consciousness, and gets up with her left arm in pain. She decides to use this distraction as her chance to grab Galaxia again, and attempts to pry it from the ground again. As she does so, she is suddenly engulfed by a heavenly light, and hears Galaxia actually speak and tell her the shocking truth: her mother knew that Meta Knight was meant to wield Galaxia and be its chosen one, and was able to get it to him in her ultimate sacrifice. Meta Knight was able to claim Galaxia as his own, therefore meaning that Garlude was right about it after all, and then proceeded to fight Kirisakin to try and save her. Now that she knows the truth, Sirica is finally successfully able to pry the sword from the ground, screaming in might as she does so and saying that if her mother gave her life for Galaxia, then she would too. As that happens, Kirisakin finally manages to break Kirby's sword, to Tiff and Tuff's horror. Just then, Sirica tosses Galaxia to the two oppositions, and they both fumble for Galaxia, but the beast shoves Kirby and grabs the sword first. However, not willing to let the beast get away with such a heavenly weapon, Meta Knight grabs Sirica's weapon and blasts him with the rocket launcher, making him let go of the sword and therefore allowing Kirby to pick it up. Now Galaxia Kirby, he raises the blade in the air and calls down light from the heavens, blinding the beast. After charging up the sword with enough of that light, Kirby unleashes the Galaxia Sword Beam, which goes straight through the ape and cuts him cleanly in two (despite his attempts to block it with his scythes, which, of course, was futile, and they got broken in the process). Kirisakin then explodes, having been destroyed by the Sword Beam, and Kirby and Meta Knight's friends rejoice, and Kirby lands, striking another pose with Galaxia. Sirica is then happy to know what a great warrior her mother was to the end, and Meta Knight reminds her that her mother would have been so proud, therefore finally making peace come between them both and therefore causing Sirica to find new friends in Kirby and co. The next day, Sirica bids goodbye to her new friends as she departs from Planet Popstar on her spaceship, and they wave goodbye to her. Tiff says, "Wow, Meta Knight... she was a great warrior," as the group continues waving goodbye to their new friend, and the episode ends as they continue to do so from the back view and it fades out to white (instead of doing the usual star-shaped fade-out). Changes in the dub * Galaxia has a male voice in the Japanese version and a female voice in the English dub. * In the Japanese version, Meta Knight says that anyone unworthy who tries to claim Galaxia as their own will be overwhelmed by its energy, suffering excruciating pain or even death. In the English dub, he says that those who are not worthy of holding Galaxia who try to claim it as their own anyway will end up infusing evil upon themselves. * Kirisakin's kaiju-esque roars in the Japanese version were replaced with more common sound effects of grunts and roars in the English dub, resembling that of a lion. This was likely done because the sound effects used in the Japanese version were rather hard to hear. * In the Japanese version, Sirica says that Garlude was a Galaxy Soldier. As all references to the Galaxy Soldier Army were removed in the English dub, in said dub she just says that her mother was a Star Warrior. *Originally, Sirica's gun would shed machine gun shells as bullets came out. The dub removed the shells that came out. *For unknown reasons, part of the scene where Galaxia was being forged was cut out. *In the Japanese version, Photron was called the race of light. In the English dub, it was called the king of the ancient fire race. *Minor profanity was removed from the dub. In Japan, there are many words that are much more acceptable than in other areas of the world, such as religious words that are offensive to those following that religion when taken out of context. *Kirby's Line "Galaxia Sword Beam!" was edited out in the English dub. Trivia * It is unknown how Sword Knight's sword is repaired in later episodes after Sword Kirby's sword is broken by Kirisakin not long after Kirby becomes said form through inhaling that said sword. * Kirisakin is deemed by the Japanese version as a super-powerful monster, while the English dub knows him as the great beast, or, as the N.M.E. Sales Guy calls him, the "big guy." * As said in the episode plot written above, Sirica's spaceship looks strikingly like Sir Gallant's spaceship. The differences are the color scheme, as well as its inside. * When Sirica is shooting fire at Dedede and Escargoon in the crater, a Nightmare Enterprises symbol can be seen on her gun's handle. It's unknown how this gun was obtained by Sirica. * This is one of three episodes to be included in the "Kirby's History" section of Kirby's Dream Collection Special Edition, the others being Kirby Comes to Cappy Town and Waddle While You Work. Category:Kirby: Right Back at Ya! Episodes